Word.ws English Dictionary

cover one's back

cover one's back verb: to protect or look out for oneself.

Verb

cover one's back (third-person singular simple present covers one's back, present participle covering one's back, simple past and past participle covered one's back)

  1. (figuratively, informal) To protect or look out for oneself.
    Synonyms:
    cover one's backside, cover one's behind, cover one's rear, cover one's ass, cover one's arse

Synonyms of cover one's back

  • cover one's backside
  • cover one's behind
  • cover one's rear
  • cover one's ass
  • cover one's arse

Forms of cover one's back

third-person singular presentcovers one's back
present participlecovering one's back
past participlecovered one's back
pastcovered one's back

Questions about cover one's back

What does cover one's back mean?
Cover one's back means to protect or look out for oneself.
What part of speech is cover one's back?
Cover one's back is a verb.
What is the past tense of cover one's back?
The past tense of cover one's back is covered one's back.

Words near cover one's back in the dictionary

  1. cover meters
  2. cover name
  3. cover names
  4. cover note
  5. cover notes
  6. cover one's back
  7. cover one's bases
  8. cover one's feet
  9. cover one's tracks
  10. cover oneself in glory
  11. cover oneself with glory

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cover one's back (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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